placed the glass of water beside it, explaining to Mrs. Thrip, “Michael insists on having ice water with his tea every afternoon. Silly, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Thrip sniffed, smiled, and said, “It is odd,” in a gentle voice.
Shayne looked up as she tightened a quirk of amusement around her mouth. He said, “It’s an old Mongolian custom. Tea just wouldn’t be tea without ice water on the side. The Chinese think it’s silly, you know, the way we put ice in hot tea to make it cold and lemon in it to make it sour and then put sugar in to-”
“Look, darling,” Phyllis interrupted, resuming her prim position in her chair, “Mrs. Thrip is here to discuss business. Mightn’t you-?”
“Of course,” Shayne said hastily. “Shall we go down to my offices on the next floor, Mrs. Thrip?”
A disappointed look was covering Phyllis’s face when Mrs. Thrip interposed quietly: “I’d like your wife to hear me, Mr. Shayne. She has been so charming and sympathetic. I believe I can say what must be said more easily with her present.”
“So there,” Phyllis said in an undertone. A toe of her shoe nudged one of Shayne’s number twelves.
Shayne took a sip of cognac from the teacup and agreed. “Wives do have their uses, Mrs. Thrip. You said something about-the notes?”
“Yes. The threats I’ve received recently. I feel that after you hear about-everything-you will reconsider and take the case.”
“You are under the impression that Mr. Thrip withheld some of the facts from me this afternoon?”
“He is in a difficult position, Mr. Shayne. There are certain things which a wife hesitates to confess. That’s why I came to you. I’m positive of the identity of the person who wrote those notes, while Arnold is under the impression that they are the work of a crank. I suppose he told you that.”
Shayne said, “U-m-m.”
Mrs. Thrip nodded as if in understanding. “I’m glad he finally decided to call in a detective. It has been a difficult situation for me.” There was a hint of a shudder in her shoulders. “Horribly difficult. At first Arnold wanted me to pay the money demanded. A man in Arnold’s position couldn’t afford such publicity, you understand. I suppose you’ll think me a coward, but I knew the first payment would only bring more demands. I couldn’t tell Arnold-without telling him everything.”
Shayne took another drink from his teacup and said casually, “I understand, Mrs. Thrip,” without even remotely knowing what he was supposed to understand. Over the rim of his cup he saw a flicker in her eyes. An alive, normal brightness which died away, leaving her face immobile. Her eyes were vague again. “To handle the case properly, you realize that I should know all the facts,” he added practically.
“I can’t tell you the agony I’ve suffered, Mr. Shayne,” she resumed. “The nights I’ve lain awake. I’m afraid to sleep, wondering.” Mrs. Thrip paused. Again she removed her protective armor of placidity and there was fear in her gray eyes.
“That man is a devil,” Mrs. Thrip broke out suddenly. “He’s capable of anything.” Her face was drained of all color, and Shayne had a fleeting impression of emeralds glinting between her lashes when she went on:
“Twice lately he has accompanied our daughter to her room after bringing her home late from God knows what evil places.”
“What man?” Shayne did not move from his lolling position. The low tone in which Mrs. Thrip spoke was evidence of a great inner turmoil, but when she did not continue her recital Shayne dragged his torso forward, took another puff on his cigarette, and ground it out in a little cut-glass ash tray on the coffee table-one of Phyllis’s domesticities, he reflected fleetingly. “Who is this man?” he prompted gently.
Sharp teeth indented Leora Thrip’s lower lip. “Carl Meldrum,” she whipped out. “I don’t know whether that’s his real name or not, but it’s the name he was using when I met him three years ago.” She leaned forward, fumbling nervously with her purse. “This is no time for false pride. I’m going to tell you everything.”
“False pride has no place anywhere,” Shayne encouraged her. The moralism gave him an inner amusement.
Leora Thrip moistened her lips twice before going on: “I was thirty-nine three years ago. Neither of you can know what that means to a woman in the position I was in. They say that the years between thirty and forty are the best of a woman’s life. I was nearing the end. I was hated in my home. Arnold didn’t really love me-not the way I want to be loved. His children distrusted me-and hated me. I would soon be forty.” She looked from Shayne to Phyllis as if to assure herself of understanding, then relaxed against the back of the chair. “There’s nothing-more tragic-than a woman who reaches forty without knowing love. It is the end. After forty-it is too late.”
When Leora Thrip stopped talking, Shayne waited patiently for her to begin again. He gave his entire attention to lighting a fresh cigarette. Phyllis shifted her position, crossed her knees, rested an elbow on them and cupped her chin in her hand. Her eyes were a little wetter, enhancing the pity in their depths. The silence was becoming embarrassing. Shayne took up his teacup in both hands, took a deep sip. Over the rim of the cup he saw the woman’s hands relax and lie limp in her lap, and she continued:
“I’ve tried not to blame Arnold during the years we’ve been married. I’ve stifled the bitterness I couldn’t help feeling. I won’t say he doesn’t love me-in his way. It’s difficult to tell about a man who doesn’t-who is impotent. I was young when I married him. Whatever happened to him was not his fault, for he was the father of two children when I married him. I wanted to mother them, but they’ve hated me since the day I came into their home.
“Arnold loves me in so far as he’s capable. He’s too passive for hate, but from the first he has resented my having all the money I wanted of my own, and he has resented the terms of my father’s estate. My father’s will positively forbade the turning over of my estate or money to the man I married. I couldn’t have helped Arnold-even if I had wanted to.”
Phyllis took advantage of a brief pause in the woman’s story and turned on the dim light of a lamp in a far corner of the room. She dragged her chair a little closer to Shayne’s when she came back. Shayne moved heavily, sat up with both hands gripping the chair arms. He started to speak, but sank back again when Leora Thrip shuddered and said:
“Arnold Thrip is a good man.” There was an unmistakable emphasis of repugnance on the adjective. “I believe more good men have sent women’s souls to hell than all the criminals in existence.” Her eyes were raised defiantly, nickering from Shayne to Phyllis.
“Why, it would be better if he beat you occasionally,” Phyllis burst out impulsively, and when her words fell upon heavy silence, she added hastily, “I mean if he were normal-and all.”
The sun was sinking and darkness coming on. A humid breeze poured in from the east windows. Clouds were banked against the sky. Mrs. Thrip stared out the window for a moment, then resumed her story briskly:
“It all began three years ago, when I was thirty-nine. Thirty-nine wasted years behind me and nothing before me.”
During the brief pause in which Mrs. Thrip apparently carefully considered the continuity of her story, Shayne glanced aside at Phyllis. Her eyes were very bright. Shayne grinned and Mrs. Thrip said:
“I met Carl Meldrum in Atlantic City at a house party. Carl’s first gesture was-well, he touched my hair as if he thought it beautiful. After that he-he flattered me-made love to me. I accepted his attentions gratefully and I felt innocent of any wrongdoing. What Carl wanted of me was something that Arnold had never wanted. Something he hadn’t-well, the power to possess. I couldn’t feel any guilt over the thought of giving Carl what Arnold neither wanted nor had the-” She caught her lip as if conscious of the repetition.
Shayne straightened. Phyllis reached her hand out and rested it on his knobby knee. He put his big hand over hers and squeezed it.
“Carl was fascinating in so many little ways. He made me feel young again. I was swept off my feet. There was so little time left for love.”
For an instant her face was transformed into a miracle of youthfulness. She lowered her eyes shyly when a flush spread over her cheeks. Then her mouth drooped and she went on in an undertone which Phyllis and Shayne strained forward to hear:
“I went into the affair with Carl deliberately. I didn’t believe I could hurt Arnold. I respected Arnold, but-” She checked herself again. Her voice was sharper when she went on:
“But I soon discovered that Carl was evil. You-understand what I mean. What began as a glorious adventure ended in-in shame, before anything irrevocable had happened. I broke with Carl and did not see him until two months ago. Dorothy-our daughter-brought him to our home one evening and introduced him to her father and me. He’s living at the Palace Hotel on the beach.”
